like the stars love the moon
by ink-stained dreams
Summary: "They always knew, right from the start." The love story of Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy. one-shot


**This is my atrociously delayed prize for Rosalie'sRevenge, who won first place in my Grimmification Competition. I grovel for her forgiveness in being so late in getting this. xP **

**Note: I tried really, really hard for this to be a pure fluff piece, but I just couldn't resist throwing in some dark! It's at the very end, and it's not that much, so I hope that's okay.**

**Disclaimer: If Harry Potter belonged to me, we would see a heckuva lot more Ginny/Tom action. And she would be insane. Now you tell me, do YOU think I'm J.K.? **

**Disclaimed Two: This is my first time writing either of the Malfoys, so I hereby claim myself not liable for any and all OOCness and further awkwardness of this piece. :D **

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><p>He is the moon and she is the stars, two beings of the night destined to shine together.<p>

They always knew, right from the start.

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><p>She saw him first. Everyone was packed close together as they waited in the hall, and Narcissa was surrounded by so much <em>noise <em>and _heat _and _low-borns _that it almost made her sick. She stretched up on her petite little legs as she looked for a way out, one ghost-pale head bobbing above the masses. She sighed and frowned, her blue eyes going dark with disappointment and her feet growing sore from being on tiptoe. She was stuck here in the middle of this ruffian mob.

And then there was him.

Standing at the front, commanding the attention of those surrounding him like a prince, smiling like the crescent moon. His grey eyes flashed as he tilted his head back and laughed. Her breath caught in her throat and goose bumps leapt across her skin and she _knew_.

He looked up and he saw her.

She granted him a smile before dropping back down. With cold fingers and tingling cheeks, she waited. And waited. And waited still, but he didn't appear. It took until after the sorting—_Lucius_, what a wonderful name—when the feast began for him to come. There was a gentle pressure beside her as he sat down. She ate silently for several moments, not deigning to glance at him, pretending she didn't care while her heart raced. Then:

"I noticed you earlier."

Narcissa gives her plate a small smile. "As I noticed you." She pauses before continuing. "You've kept me waiting a rather long time, Lucius." She pulls out the first name card, daring him to know and use hers.

"I'm afraid I was delayed, Narcissa," he returns, so she looks up and meets his pale, serene gaze and smiles at _him_ this time.

It starts there and it never stops.

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><p>They weren't official until fourth year, but all the same, everyone knew. No boy dared blush and stutter to Narcissa Black, because no matter how "single" she was, she was <em>Lucius's <em>girl. No girl ever risked more than smile tentatively at Lucius Malfoy, because he belonged to _Narcissa_. But when they turned fourteen, Lucius took her hand and then they were each other's in word as well as heart and soul.

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><p>Sixteen, and it's in body as well.<p>

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><p>Narcissa was always a crier: as the youngest of three girls, it was practically her entitlement. She cried for what she wanted, what she didn't get, what she did get. She knew how to summon up tears at a moment's notice.<p>

Lucius was the only one who ever saw her really cry.

He found her in the Astronomy Tower, their place. She turned at the sound of footsteps, and when she saw his silver eyes and corn silk hair, she turned away again from shame. He sat beside her on the ledge and said, "You really ought not to cry; it's not very flattering." Which was his own way of asking what wrong, she knew. Lucius was abominable when it came to saying how he felt.

"I know," she said through her jumping breath, wiping her face with the sleeve of her pajamas. They were not her shallow, little-girl tears, though, not so easy to stop, so her face was wet again in seconds. They sat side by side, the crisp night air stirring against their faces, until she finally allowed, "Bella is monstrous." And the backs of her eyes stung anew as a fresh wave of tears darted down her cheeks. "She doesn't care about anyone and she says the cruelest things and she called me a idiot little girl without a backbone and she laughed at me she's so mean and horribleIhateherIhateher…" Her words deteriorated into meaningless gulps and hiccups. Narcissa dragged her pale hands over her eyes, trying to clear the tears. She slammed them back on the stone, breathing out heavily.

Lucius waited a moment. "To be honest, I never liked her," he confessed, putting his hand over hers. Narcissa smiled shakily at him, and he wiped the tears from her cheeks.

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><p>Narcissa never really believed that he was hers.<p>

The difference between the stars and the moon is that you can see the moon even during the day and only the night brings out the stars. Lucius was glimmering and amazing and perfect, and Narcissa was…less. Beautiful, but not special; she couldn't command a room like Lucius could. Only beside him did she feel unique and wonderful and glowing. Secretly, she was always terrified that he would see her weakness and leave her behind for someone stronger and better. Sometimes she was so afraid she could hardly think and she would lie awake in the middle of the night, wondering how, _how _she would ever live without him.

The night when he proposed, on her nineteenth birthday, she finally slept easy.

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><p>Their wedding was everything she dreamed of as a child, everything to be expected of a power couple like them, everything any woman could wish for. She was radiant in her pearlescent white gown, her immaculately coifed hair adorned with a glittering tiara. Standing outside the double doors, waiting for the music to begin, she picked up her bouquet. Her mother had suggested roses; her bridesmaids had wanted lilies. And she had refused both. Narcissa smiled and fingered one petal of the blooms. White narcissus flowers.<p>

The first notes swelled out, and her heart arrested mid-beat. The doors swung open onto the crowd of spectators. She clutched her father's arm and let him lead her down the aisle, dazzled and half-blinded by the sunlight reflecting off of her white surroundings. She smiled automatically as fear scattered through her veins, looking out on the seas of faces. Her left hand curled tighter around her bouquet: that one familiar thing among all of the people she had not invited and the decorations she did not choose. Her father traded her off to Lucius, and as the minister intoned, "Dearly Beloved…" she looked at her husband-to-be out of the corner of her blue eyes. He spared her a small smile. And all of the things she had though mattered, the months of dresses and lace and planning, all fell away, and she _knew_. He was all that mattered. It took everything within her not to kiss him right then.

Of course, they did get to kiss eventually. And as they pulled apart, she couldn't hear the cheers of her family or the fanfare of the orchestra, she only heard the whisper:

"_Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy_."

And it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard.

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><p>That sound was trumped, in turn, by Draco Malfoy's first howling cry. And then replaced again by his first, "Mama." Which was bumped out of its place by his first, "I love you."<p>

Her days were full of beautiful sounds and beautiful things and beautiful people, and she began to believe that life would always be this _beautiful_.

Even when her world turned dark, soured by the culmination of the Second Wizarding War, she believed. And she believed through the mounting fear, because she was Narcissa Malfoy, and she was powerful and strong and she would ride out this rough spot, and she would come out on top, like she always had.

Until she heard the ugliest words of her life.

"_Sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban!_"

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><p>Lucius had always been the moon. Narcissa had always needed him by her to shine; she needed him to turn the blinding day into blessed night; she <em>needed<em> him, period. And her moon had been stolen from her. She was stuck in an eternal noontime, with the white eye of the sun burning overhead and forcing her to the darkest corners.

"Lucius!" she screamed. "My Lucius!" Until her throat was raw, until she finally realized that no amount of yelling would bring the moon back into the sky.

So she set out on a rainy night, because she could not save her husband but she would damned well save their son.

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><p>It was one long, terrible year before day turned into night.<p>

One year full of pain and fear and loneliness and the unbearable heat.

One year until the doors opened and she heard the moon calling her name. She careened down the stairs like a bird in flight, hurtling into his arms, planting kisses like narcissus flowers on his face. She tasted dust and dried blood and tears, but it didn't matter, because he was luminous, and she was bursting with light and the whole night sky was full of their shining.

She seized his face between her hands, afraid it would disappear if she didn't hold it tight enough.

"You've kept me waiting rather long time, Lucius," she said, smiling and sobbing and trembling with joy.

He pressed his forehead to hers and laughed a breathless laugh. "I'm afraid I was delayed, Narcissa."

And he wiped the tears from her cheeks.


End file.
